Defending Pay Equity in Minnesota - A Call to Action

Pay Equity Friends,

On December 10, 2010 The Minnesota Chamber of Commerce (www.mnchamber.com) released its findings regarding public employee compensation. One of their many recommendations is:

"State pay equity/comparable worth law should be repealed. Its purpose is outdated, and requiring governments to correct perceived “errors” in labor markets based on bureaucratic and subjective assessments of the relative value of government jobs is an unnecessary and costly mandate." (compstudy.highlighlights.final.12.9.10.pdf, p.7.)

We, of course, do not agree. The purpose of the state pay equity/comparable worth law is to eliminate “discrimination against women who are paid less than men for jobs requiring comparable levels of expertise.” (http://www.mmb.state.mn.us/comp-pay-equity) It is very likely there will be legislation introduced this legislative session, which begins January 3, 2011, in response to the Minnesota Chamber of Commerce and NAIOP Minnesota’s recommendations. The Chamber of Commerce is the state’s largest business advocacy organization.

The State Government Pay Equity Act and the Local Government Pay Equity Act were passed in 1982 and 1984 respectively. The Pay Equity Coalition of Minnesota is dedicated to defending the laws and ensuring they are not weakened or repealed.

Both pieces of legislation have been very successful in putting more money into the pockets of hard working women in the public sector. These laws go far beyond the concept of equal pay for equal work – which we know has been largely ineffective in terms of decreasing the wage gap between fulltime working women and men. According to a report released in June, 2010 by the Women’s Foundation of Minnesota and the Humphrey Institute: “White, African American and Latina women earn $0.76, $0.61 and $0.56 on the dollar, respectively, compared to white men”. (http://www.wfmn.org/research/?51). The State Government Pay Equity Act has helped to eliminate this gap for state employees -- except for $.03 of it!

We can use your help! It is important that our side is represented at the State Capitol this winter. As much as we look to our volunteers for help, it is important that paid professionals come to our aid as well, and that requires money.

If you or your organization can help, please send your check donations to our fiscal agent:

Minnesota Women’s Consortium
550 Rice St.
St. Paul, MN 55103
Check tagline: Pay Equity Coalition of Minnesota

Please contact me any time if you have any questions about the efforts of the Pay Equity Coalition of Minnesota. We are also available to speak at your events.

Sincerely,

Patty Tanji

Minnesota Public Employee Compensation is Under Attack

More money troubles are brewing here in Minnesota. On December December 10, 2010 the Minnesota Chamber of Commerce released its report on public employee compensation. Here's the link on their home page.

http://www.mnchamber.com/

AFSCME Council 5 responded on December 11, 2010. Here's the link to their response:

http://www.workdayminnesota.org/index.php?news_6_4708

Briefly -- it looks like the Tax Payer Association has pegged Minnesota public employee wages as too high and AFSCME Council 5 thinks they are just fine.

Pay Equity Coalition of Minnesota will respond to the Chamber's report shortly after we get a chance to mill it over.

Stay tuned.....

Statement by Secretary of Labor Hilda L. Solis on US Senate's failure to pass Paycheck Fairness Act

PR-USA.net - Statement by Secretary of Labor Hilda L. Solis on US Senate's failure to pass Paycheck Fairness Act

Pay Envy and What to Do About

Check out Chris Walker's response in the comments. He ran a quick salary check using jobsearchintelligence.com. I've cut and pasted his response here. Thank you Chris.

"Check the salary calculator at jobsearchintelligence.com. I ran a calculation on male & female accountants in Akron, OH with the same education and experience. The calculator uses 12 datapoints, here's the results:
MALE 'Your salary survey data results for Accountants in Akron, OH:
There are 2910 persons employed as Accountants in Akron, OH.
Entry level range salaries (The 10th percentile) for this occupation are $38850
The median salary for this occupation is $57220.
The top earners for this occupation have an annualized salary of $90850
Based upon the information that you have provided, the market will likely offer you an annual salary of $62700'

FEMALE:'Based upon the information that you have provided, the market will likely offer you an annual salary of $49100.
As a reference, a person who is not subject to any gender bias or racial bias, with the same qualifications as those listed by you is currently earning an annual salary of $62700'"

Pay for Performance leads to Bias

This is a study done by MIT researcher Emilio Castella. I found the article's link at workforce.com. You may have to subscribe as a member to get to the link. This website is worth it -- and its free as long as you don't mind the occasional email touting a book or a conference or webinar. I've actually attend two webinars as a result of joining the 'free website.

The study concludes what is becoming more and more obvious to those of us following equitable compensation practices. The practice of wage setting must be as open and transparent as possible. In this study employees who received similar performance ratings were in fact not given the same pay raises. The folks who were responsible for setting pay took the liberty of fine tuning the pay adjustments. The same formula was not applied to all employees resulting in bias. Oops.

Here's the MIT sloan link:

http://mitsloan.mit.edu/newsroom/2008-castilla.php

Motherhood and the Wage Gap

Just found this article courtesy of the Society for Human Resource Management. See link above.

I found this section of interest, especially the last sentence:

"Previous studies on wage differences by gender have found that roughly half of an observed 20 percent gender gap cannot be explained by the usual factors that drive wages, such as experience, hours worked, occupation, industry, age and the like," said report co-author Beata Caranci, deputy chief economist at TD Economics. "The research leads us to conclude that exits from the labor force, most often related to family or motherhood—not gender—are the culprit behind this 'unexplained' wage gap."


Here's what I know -- one of the logical properties of equality we learned in high school math....

The transitive property states:

* For any quantities a, b, and c, if a = b and b = c, then a = c.

Wage gap logic:

Exits = 'unexplained' wage gap
family or motherhood = Exits
'unexplained' wage gap ≠ family or motherhood

The math doesn't add up to me. Also, I presume motherhood still means female since 99.99999999% of mothers are women (could be more but I'm leaving room for speculation).

I just really can't draw any more conclusions around this report. I'll let you try. Feel free to post a response.

Females are equal to males in math skills, large study shows

Females are equal to males in math skills, large study shows